


Okukawa's Seven

by thehandsingsweapon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Heist fic, an ocean's 8 au was long overdue and these girls deserve it, minako proving the ladies do it better, some of you have never seen the ocean's 12 dance scene and it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 04:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsingsweapon/pseuds/thehandsingsweapon
Summary: Okukawa Minako prides herself on working with proper criminals. So when Victor Nikiforov starts monopolizing her protégé in his heists with Yakov Feltsman, she sets out to prove why it's always a bad idea to cut the ladies out of a job.And where else to make a splash, except for Cannes?Featuring:The Brain: Okukawa MinakoThe Face: Lilia BaranovskayaThe Finger: Sara CrispinoThe Driver: Mila BabichevaThe Hacker: Katsuki MariThe Fence: Nishigori Yuukoand, last but not least, The Accomplice: Isabella Yang





	Okukawa's Seven

''Why are we here, Minako.” Lilia Baranovskaya has a way of turning questions into statements, and as usual, she has no time for any of Okukawa Minako’s usual bullshit. She manages this attitude even as, at sixty-two, she’s doing the splits and wrapped up in the red silks provided for every student in the aerials class Minako has flown her halfway around the world to go to. The class is taught by a nice Italian girl from New Jersey, and Lilia is approaching it with the same stoic attitude she’d used on the phone when Minako first called:

> _(“I don’t do these kinds of jobs anymore, as you know. Feltsman and I finalized the divorce last year and I’ve taken the opportunity to retire.”_
> 
> _“Shame,”_ Minako had murmured, with a heavy sigh. _“I’ve got a lead on a job in France and my apprentice is unavailable.”_
> 
> _“Unavailable?”_ Lilia echoed, with polite, conversational disinterest that anyone but Minako would’ve been discouraged by, except that they’d known eachother for a long time, and Lilia never wasted words. 
> 
> _“Scheduling him has become difficult now that he’s involved with Nikiforov,_ ” Minako added, droll. _“You know how that is, don’t you?”)_

In retrospect it had been a cheap shot to use Nikiforov in the ploy, with all the cards stacked against him, but Minako knows every successful con relies on pressing these little advantages. Victor Nikiforov is Yakov Feltsman’s prodigiously-talented protege, and as a result, Minako keeps a close eye on his comings and goings. He’s also recently recruited Lilia’s angry, talented nephew to join his usual crew of rag-tag criminals, and most importantly, Katsuki Yuuri has been infatuated with him ever since the Oriental Express heist. Now that the two of them are sleeping together, Minako’s been largely deprived of her best greaseman. On the one hand, she’s delighted for her godson; on the other, it’s extremely irritating, because Yuuri’s new schedule, the one where he keeps name-dropping gigs he’s taken in exotic places _with Victor_ is preventing Minako from getting capers done on the schedule to which she’s occustomed. The point is, once Lilia had made the connection, from Katsuki to Nikiforov to Feltsman, her participation was all but guaranteed. 

Minako looks back at the Jersey girl teaching their class, watching as she bends her body in ways bodies aren’t meant to be bent and then twirls in an elegant loop above the hardwood. “I thought we’d relax before we go out,” she hums. Lilia is unimpressed, of course: _we’re going out,_ she echoes, incredulous. But later, of course, she sits at the bar and sips a martini with her typical scowl until they notice nice Italian aerial instructor and Jersey girl Sara Crispino in a shimmery, sequin dress that hugs every curve, letting foolish men buy her drinks while she lifts their watches, phones, and wallets off of their persons with an angelic smile. 

At this, Lilia grows wise. “I have a lead on a driver,” she says, without missing a beat.

There only winds up being one complication with the driver, a hot-shot motorcycle racer named Mila Babicheva cheerfully funding her stakes in the professional circuits through a series of jobs, not unlike this one, executed on the side. “No-can-do France,” she says, popping a bubble of chewing gum while Lilia’s nose wrinkles in distaste. “I have like thirteen outstanding parking citations in Paris alone.”

Lilia sounds chagrined. “Child,” she snaps, “I will pay for your traffic tickets. But it’s coming out of your cut.”

Mila makes negotiations easy, painless, swift as a drift around a tight corner. “Sweet, where are we going?”

“Cannes,” says Lilia, at the same time that Minako is also on the phone, calling long-distance back to Hasetsu.

In Hasetsu, it’s 9 PM, which Minako happens to know is the bedtime of three future connivers who will someday put them all to shame, even if their mother is busily pretending to be an ordinary shopkeeper who never operated as a fence for the most successful family of art thieves in history. How Toshiya and Hiroko wiggled and smiled their way into jobs as Insurance Fraud Analysts and Interpol Agents, respectively, was a mystery to Minako until she started training Yuuri; there exists around the Katsuki family a kind of aura of trustworthiness which makes them seemingly impervious to being suspects of crime. Anyway, Yuuko’s married now, busily pretending she was never born into the black market for the sake of her dumb-as-a-brick husband and the off-chance that somehow she might be able to spare the triplets from a life of crime. Fat chance, that. 

Minako starts the conversation off by pretending Yuuko’s still in the game, even if she’s been out of it for five years. “I need you,” she says, idly, inspecting her own fingernails. Due for a manicure soon. “How quickly can you be in Cannes?” she asks Yuuko Nishigori, listening to the sound of three toddlers screaming over the possibility of having to give up Yuuko’s phone for the night. Evidently there’s a new ice skating game out that’s all the rage and they’re not willing to give it up.

“Minako-sensei, you know I don’t do this kind of work anymore.”

In the background, Axel gives out a determined yell. She seems to be busily organizing an anti-sleep union in the Nishigori household. Minako smiles. “There are no ice skating iPhone apps in Cannes,” she drawls. “No packed lunches for Takeshi to take off his boring 9 to 5 … how _did_ you ever convince him you were just an ordinary, stand-up citizen again?” Minako’s already done the math on that and doesn’t need an answer; it has something to do with the fact that Takeshi is nothing more than a good-hearted, oversized puppy, and Yuuko’s got an impressive rack. But meanwhile Yuuko is doing math of her own.

“Eighteen hours and thirty-six minutes, give or take.”

“Take your time,” Minako hums. “We’re not going for another three days. Pick up Mari on your way to the airport, will you? And tell her not to tell her love-sick, idiot brother.”

 

\- - - 

 

“What’s wrong with Yuuri?” Yuuko asks, which is sweet of her. Yuuko was Yuuri’s best friend growing up, and she’s a romantic, to boot, which means she probably thinks it’s wonderful that Yuuri’s found his one true love. Minako, on the other hand, thinks it’s largely inconvenient and she’s got a point to make.

“Nothing,” says Minako, whose smile is luxurious, the sort of thing men have lost millions for, “but this one’s just for us girls.”

“Who’s the mark, anyway,” Mari asks, as they check-in to a vacation villa Minako’s held a reservation on for the better part of six months.

“Marks, technically,” Minako drawls. She snaps the magazine she’s been reading shut; on the front cover is action-film start Jean-Jacques Leroy, flashing his infamous JJ-style sign and his multi-million dollar smile at the camera. _King JJ Extends His Reign Over Hollywood With Another Summer Blockbuster,_ proclaims the cover, but it’s the interior article she’s interested in, specifically the one paragraph that laments how soon Leroy will be off the market, now that he’s fallen head over heels for what the magazine describes _would-be indie ingenue Isabella Yang._ Minako’s delighted by the poor choice of words; her job’s just gotten easier.

 

\- - - 

 

“I don’t understand why we can’t check-in at the hotel,” Sara complains, as Lilia and Yuuko make final preparations to depart their flat. Lilia is already perfectly in character using the elaborate cover Mari’s devised for her as _Franziska Mayrhofer_ , an Austrian influencer, fashionista, millionaire and executive producer who does not, in fact, exist. Franziska wears bespoke, tailor-made tweed suits and jewels that no untrained eye is going to be able to distinguish from Harry Winston, thanks to Yuuko’s blackmarket knock-off connections; and Yuuko looks the part of the perfect assistant, well-tailored and easily forgettable, as though she’ll fade into the background at any moment. Soon enough, they’ll both occupy room 412 at the _Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic_ , home of the stars. 

“We pull this off and you can stay at any hotel you want in the whole world, babe,” quips Mila, flashing a wink as she loads luggage into their rented Alfa Romeo. She’ll be in-role as chauffeur for the check-in, because it affords an opportunity to practice their exit route. 

_Babe_ is a word Minako pretends not to notice; she’s tired of playing accidental matchmaker between thieves. “Check the earring,” she tells Mari, perched on the flat’s stylish couch with a laptop open and at the ready. 

Mari taps a few keys and then gives her a cursory nod. “Works like a dream.” 

Casing the place is easy, too easy. Lilia and Yuuko have it more or less mapped within a day, and Sara lifts a security badge from a Front Desk Associate while sipping expensive cocktails at a bar overlooking the beach. Mari has it copied and ready for return within fifteen minutes; two hours later, Yuuko has them physically patched into the security room’s servers and Mari owns the place. And that is when the problem Minako has been expecting arrives. Or rather: Minako has been expecting _a problem_. Just not _this_ problem. Yuuko’s the one who calls it in. “We’ve got a problem,” she announces, as Minako puts her on speaker in the living room of the flat they’re working out of. “Feltsman is checked in.”

_Feltsman_. Minako is suddenly glad that Lilia’s halfway across town at the hotel; she may be a professional thief, but she’s always drawn the line at actual murder. There are rules. An honor code. They’re going to have a _discussion_ later.

“Oh, I knew that,” Sara says, prompting Minako to fix her with a flat stare. “I mean, I figured he’d come around after Lilia asked me to tell Mickey I was doing a casino job in France. My brother can’t keep a secret to save his life, you know? I bet you he’s here, too.”

“… Yakov thinks we’re going after the Barriere casino,” Minako mutters. “Reservations for Feltsman and his known associates,” she instructs Mari, who types away, insisting she’s already on it. 

“I mean, I could just call Yuuri. Do you want me to call him?”

If Yakov’s here, Nikiforov’s here. If Nikiforov’s here, then so is Yuuri. Possibly Chulanont. Plisetsky. Giacometti. It’s an impressive roster of names, Minako will give him that. “No.” She sighs, already making contingency plans. “Lilia, I don’t know what you’re after, but now we’re here to steal two things, and pissing Feltsman off doesn’t split six ways.”

“Seven,” Lilia corrects her. “We have a meeting to take this evening with Ms. Yang.”

“Ms. Yang?”

“She and Leroy arrived yesterday,” Yuuko explains. There’s still a little over a week before the film festival. “I think he’s going to propose, personally.”

“How romantic.” Minako mutters. “I hate love.”

 

\- - -

 

The meeting with Isabella Yang goes like this: Yuuko has convinced her that her work has caught the eye of _Ms. Franziska Mayrhofer_ , eccentric, elitist, professional genius. “My assistant informs me that you’d like to start your own production company someday,” Lilia murmurs, her Austrian accent positively flawless. They’re dining at _La Passagère_ while Mila and Sara are off casing a casino that Minako has no intention of actually robbing, just to throw Yakov off of their trail. The restaurant looks out over the sparkling riviera, and Minako has resisted the childish urge to kick her accomplice under the table at least three times already. “I’d like to know why you haven’t done so already.” Up close, Isabella Yang is a gorgeous girl, but Minako can see why the Hollywood elite have been wary to completely take her on; they prefer their starlets to be blonde, with fewer sharp angles, and certainly less intellect. 

“I’ve been working on securing funding.”

“Have I misunderstood?” Lilia sniffs, skewering her lamb. “You are with Monsieur Leroy, are you not?”

It has the desired effect; Isabella bristles in her chair. “I’m not going to use JJ for his money, if that’s what you think.” 

This is Minako’s cue to intervene. “Ah, please excuse Ms. Mayrhofer. My business partner can be rather blunt. In truth, she’s been considering making an investment herself … I believe it’s her way of assessing how serious you are about your work.”

“I didn’t come here to be tested,” Isabella protests.

“Ah, but you will be, regardless,” Lilia interrupts, her citrine eyes flashing. “You already know this, don’t you? It is how this industry operates. What was it they called her last month, Ms. Nishigori?”

Yuuko dutifully supplies the words that will seal Isabella’s fate. “A would-be indie ingenue, ma’am.”

Isabella’s frown deepens and Lilia tilts her head. “Like it or not,” she intones, “you’re a player in their game. You can ignore it, and they’ll make you suffer, acknowledge it, and they’ll make you change to fit their mold, or …”

“Or?”

Lilia and Minako exchange a look, letting the moment stretch out. “Or,” says Minako, once they’ve pretended to decide Isabella’s worthy, “you change the rules.”

Minako studies her and then rolls the dice. “Because we are professional thieves, Ms. Yang, and I need as many people as possible out of the _Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic_ as possible in five days,” she says. Next to her, Yuuko’s mouth has popped open in surprise, and 

even Lilia sits in judgment about this new strategy of honesty and exposure.

“… You’re robbing the hotel.”

“Not the hotel, child.” Lilia admonishes. “Just the people who like to pretend they make the rules.”

“Think of it this way,” Minako quips. “It’s terribly difficult to abide by an archaic dress code when nobody has anything to wear.”

“I could report you,” Isabella mutters.

“You could,” Minako agrees, “It’ll be a remarkable second paragraph to your abysmally thin Wikipedia page, right below the paragraph devoted to your relationship with Jean-Jacques.”

“Details are in the envelope,” Lilia reminds her magnanimously as she signals for the check. “We’ll be in touch.”

 

\- - -

 

“I’ve taken care of the Yuuri angle,” Mari tells Minako once she arrives back at the flat, alone; Sara and Mila are out almost suspiciously late, which is a problem for tomorrow morning’s Minako—current Minako wants a drink of the Hibiki she bought at duty free in New York before they took off for Paris. 

Upon hearing the good news, she generously pours Mari a glass. “How?”

“I’m giving the Barriere a tip about Nikiforov tomorrow to mess them up. Once he’s on their blacklist they’ll need a new face, and Plisetsky’s too young for a Casino job,” Mari explains. It’s an inelegant solution, a little blunt, perhaps, but it’s a solution nonetheless. “… I also called him,” she adds, but before Minako can get started yelling about how everyone she works with is secretly incompetent, Mari raises both hands and cuts her off. “Hold it right there, Minako-sensei. I made him promise not to intervene.”

If Minako knows anything about Katsuki Yuuri, it’s that he has a competitive streak a mile wide and that he’s stubborn as an ox. “And how, exactly, did you manage that?”

“Oh.” Mari’s grin stretches from ear to ear. “You know,” she drawls, “I just insisted I’d tell the story about how I caught him masturbating to Victor’s mugshot once at their inevitable wedding.” 

Minako can’t argue with that. “Well,” she says, and clinks her glass against Mari’s, “Cheers.”

 

\- - -

 

“Run it one more time,” Minako insists. So Yuuko does, from the 7 PM arrival of the crew in disguise as catering for a private gathering of Franziska Mayrhofer and friends. It’s a rendezvous followed by a costume change as hotel housekeeping, while Mari resets all of the security footage to record on loop. They expect guests to depart for Isabella’s charity gala within the hour, leaving Mari to fly a small, inconspicuous drone outside the building to scan each room for the heat signatures of their occupants. Each hotel room comes equipped with a personal safe which Minako’s been practicing on every day this week—her crack time is down to thirty-two seconds on average. Room by room, they intend to gradually clean house. Extraction is at 10 P.M, ideally several million dollars richer for a few hours of work and months of planning. 

The heist goes largely according to plan as they push a catering cart from floor to floor and carefully pile up any number of treasures on the housekeeping carts they’re pulling from room to room. Alone, back in the flat, Mari keeps a running tab of the score: _Vintage Cartier? Full set? Another fifty grand, give or take._

“I’m going to be fencing diamonds forever,” Yuuko realizes. Over the comm neatly hidden in each of their ears, Mari is flippant: _I hear you can buy some very nice nannies on a one million dollar take._

“Mari,” Lilia murmurs, forty-five minutes in. “Is room 509 empty?” Mari promises to check, and then tuts disapprovingly over the audio. _Nope,_ she says, with special emphasis on the p. _Got one heat signature in 509. Better skip that one._ It’s enough to make Minako freeze and clench her fists in the hallway; surely Lilia knows that now is not the time. Surely she’s going to be a professional about this. Because she is a professional. She has decades of experience—“How big of a heat signature?” 

_Sorry, what?_ “Would you estimate it’s a grown man or a scrawny teenager, in over his head?”

_Oh, you mean Yurio? Yeah. It’s definitely him._ “Plisetsky,” mutters Yuuko. 

Minako slams the safe she’s just cracked shut, throwing a Tiffany & Co bag at Sara. “We’re going to the fifth floor,” she grumbles. Lilia is waiting for them there, a silent, menacing presence outside room 509. She and Minako share a long look, in which Minako hopes she conveys how much she absolutely hates the situation, and Lilia conveys that she and Yakov spent their misguided youths as Soviet intelligence agents before deciding to take advantage of their very specific skills on the free market after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Minako sighs and swipes the Housekeeping key.

“Jesus, it’s about time,” Yuri Plisetsky grumbles, although he abruptly shuts his mouth when Lilia steps through the door. “… _Tetushka?_ Uhh …”

“Sit down, Yura.” Lilia’s voice is sharp and stern, and the sulky teenager immediately obeys. Even he seems surprised by the speed at which he resumes sitting in one of the suite’s chairs. “I am going to take something from Yakov. You are going to sit there, and do nothing, or I am going to call your Grandfather and tell him that _Mr. Feltsman_ has you robbing Casinos.” When Minako reminds her that they’re _kind of on the clock_ and offers to make quick work of the safe, Lilia simply shakes her head. Apparently she knows the combination, just like she knows she’ll find a small box, several pairs of expensive cufflinks, and four different passports. When she takes the box, Yuri protests:

“C’mon. I’m going to have to explain where that went somehow.”

“I guess you’ll have to tell him a bunch of women beat you up,” Lilia quips. She checks her watch. “You can call him in fifty minutes, Yura. Dial it in a moment before and I swear to you that I will arrange for you to be grounded until you’re thirty.”

“Where are they, anyway?” Minako asks, just out of curiosity.

“Yakov and Giacometti are at the Barriere,” Plisetsky mutters. “They blacklisted Victor so he and Yuuri have the night off. He got them tickets to some fancy charity thing so he can get Katsuki drunk and cheer himself up, probably.” He scrunches his nose. _“Gross.”_

“Pick better associates,” Minako tells him, unsympathetic. She closes the door before any of them have to listen to Yuri’s pointed rejoinder: _he’s your idiot apprentice!_ In the hallway, she gives Lilia one final, pointed look. “Are you done?” She asks.

“Entirely,” says Lilia. “Shall we?”

The high of a successful heist—ten different suitcases full of one-of-a-kind designer attire and an unprecedented amount of high-end jewelry winds up being the smaller part of Minako’s satisfaction as they load the truck and leave: back out on the main street, almost in slow motion, she sees Victor Nikiforov running up to the hotel with a breathless Katsuki Yuuri in tow. It’s easy to see why he’s the world’s most dangerous thief; he’s devastatingly handsome in his Zegna suit, with his piercing blue eyes. Judging by his stunned expression as Mila drives by, with Minako in the passenger seat, and Yuuri’s awkward wave, he has just had a revelation about the right conditions for the perfect Cannes heist, has run back from the gala fully aware of Lilia’s red herring. Minako blows them both a kiss. “Mari,” she instructs. “Traffic cameras.”

“Already on it, boss. See you at the marina.”

Half an hour later they’re parked at a marina on the outskirts of the city and Mila’s helping everyone onboard the sleek yacht she’s chartered for their trip. “You look handsome,” coos Sara, easily impressed by Mila’s stylish suit. Minako takes a moment to make a critical note of Sara’s Versace dress and her Vuitton bag; there’s still work to be done there, but the girl’s from Jersey, it’s going to take time. Everyone else has cleaned up well to look the part; Minako’s in a vintage number she bought several years ago for the first job she ever ran on her own, and has worn superstitiously on occasions like this ever since. Together they’re just six rich socialites arriving in Monaco for a girls’ weekend out.

Which is where they arrive precisely one hour later, where Yuuko hands out six different reservations for the Hotel Metropole. Minako thinks of the Hibiki she had to apologetically surrender to the harbormaster on inspection, luggage safely stowed away in hidden compartments Mila engineered into the boat, and decides tonight she can afford to drink a little differently. “Ladies,” she says, giving both Mari and Lilia each an arm, “I think this calls for some champagne.”

 

\- - -

 

“So that’s the story of the Okukawa Seven,” Victor Nikiforov muses. He and Yuuri have returned to Hasetsu for their engagement party; Yuuri proposed by stealing the Fabergé Imperial Coronation Egg from the Hermitage single-handedly as a means of demonstrating his love. Minako’s been getting Victor steadily drunker so that she’ll be properly scary when it’s time to give him his final shovel talk. “It was beautifully done. Where are they all now?”

“Isabella’s set to direct her first feature film, which they’re saying will premiere at Sundance.” 

“I thought she was getting married?” 

“She can do both,” Minako mutters, shooting Victor a dangerous look. “Our driver took our finger on holiday to Lake Como.”

“I heard about that,” Victor murmurs. “Briefly arrested for indecent exposure. And in, what, an Aston Martin no less?” 

“Give Sara and Mila some credit,” Minako replies with a dry smirk. “It takes a lot of ingenuity to actually have sex inside of a sports car.”

“You’re telling me,” Victor retorts, flashing a devious grin. Minako’s momentarily torn between being glad they’re currently separated by her bar, or texting Yuuri her congratulations. “Crispino was beside himself for days. What else?”

“Well, you would’ve seen Mari when you stopped through Tokyo, no doubt.” 

Victor nods; he and Yuuri have evidently already been to the nightclub she’s just opened in Tokyo. “We saw a show there, but left early, the music wasn’t really my thing. Is it just me or does she totally have the hots for—”

“Takao?” Minako prompts. “I mean. You’re not wrong. And as for Yuuko, I saw her on Thursday, getting ready for date night with Takeshi. She put on a three-carat diamond necklace, and he just smiled and said, _that’s nice, where’d you get it_ and didn’t so much as blink when she told him it was a knock-off. Sometimes I think he _knows_ , you know? The triplets are hellions incarnate; they have to get it from _somewhere_.”

“He loves her anyway,” Victor says, voice momentarily dreamy. Minako wants to smack him out of it; he’s a hardened criminal, after all, the world’s best art thief. Except she knows a hopeless cause when she sees one. There’s no cure for the way he and Yuuri look at each other. It’s a life sentence. 

“There is something you can tell me,” Minako decides, drumming her fingers on the table. “Lilia never told me what it was that she took.”

“A Vacheron Constantin she gave him on their tenth anniversary,” Victor notes. “Custom engraved. _For Yasha._ ” 

“All that trouble to just to take back a watch?”

“I don’t think it’s the watch she wanted,” Victor explains, his eyes briefly narrow. “More like the microchip he kept inside.”

“Yikes,” Minako mutters, although a part of her is unsympathetic to whatever new torments Lilia has invented for Yakov on this basis. _That’s what you get for being an asshole about assets during the divorce, Feltsman._ Victor shrugs, swirling the whisky in his glass, as if to say _yeah, well, what can you do?_

“What did you do with your share?” He asks.

“I’m not in the game for the money.” They both know it’s the best way to be; get dependent on the cash and things have a way of going sideways and dangerous. Minako likes knowing she could cut loose at any time, just as much as she likes knowing she’s just pulled off one of the most admired heists on planet earth, among a very small, and very uniquely talented community of people not unlike the man who’s set to marry her god-son soon. 

“Listen,” says Victor, draining his glass. He straightens his tie and sits up, adopting a magnanimous, charming smile. “I’ve been thinking …”

Minako’s eyes twinkle. “Apology accepted,” she says. “Where’s the job?”

His grin is dangerous; it’s no wonder Katsuki Yuuri is so weak for it. “Well,” hums Victor Nikiforov. “I trust you’ve heard of the Grand Prix …”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I just love the Ocean's movies and wanted my silly heist-fic romp, okay. 
> 
> PS: if you don't think [that this is how Katsuki Yuuri seduced Victor Nikiforov in this universe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr834Cs9ncs) you don't know me and/or Yuuri very well and should reconsider your life choices


End file.
